I'm absolutely in love with this photo of my great grandmother's beautiful garden in country Queensland. This was a childhood scene that my mother still often fondly recalls, so in some way I feel like it belongs to me also, even though I've never been fortunate enough to have visited this long-gone Eden.

It seems fitting to share it today as I thank my mother and all the
other strong women in my life for all their support, strength and love;including my dearly departed grandmother, nanna, and all those amazing ladies who came before them!

2014 involved a lot of wandering, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel lost for much of it. It was a year of poor health, hard lessons and lost friendships, but also a year of amazing exploration and unerring support from loved ones and from a few unexpected corners too.

Despite the challenges and difficulties, or perhaps because of them, I'm determined to bring a more positive outlook with me into 2015.

A few years ago, in the midst of severe chronic illness (still ongoing), my domain name was poached away from me under extremely dubious circumstances - circumstances that my original provider is yet to fully explain or apologise for - I'm clearly not holding my breath!

In the meantime however, I have sporadically asked for the 'going rate' on my very specific, quite undesirable AU$10 .com domain, and as of today I have been told it is still at more than AU$900.

So please, if you happen to have linked to my site or added me to your bookmarks, or even to have supported me at any stage in the past 8 years, please do NOT do so via thatunreliablegirl.com any further - my website now is thatunreliablegirl.blogspot.com and I greatly, GREATLY appreciate every single visit and link. Please let the "owners" of my rightful domain see their stats drop daily, as they attempt to hold my domain to ransom.

If you do not want to let the shady 'domain brokers' win, please also consider helping me by sharing this post and spreading the word to update any links, and sending the love to the rightful owner of the name.

I am proud of what I have built up over the years and although I have recently been too unwell to keep the site going in earnest, I still hope to one day (soon!) relaunch it with all the energy, enthusiasm and inspiration I was once able to muster. I just need your help first!

It's been a little quiet on the blog lately as I feverishly try to pull together a million ideas into one "relaxed" party. This weekend is a fairly significant birthday milestone for me, and for the purposes of my vanity, let's just round down and pretend it's my 25th.

Next weekend I'll be having a party to celebrate/mourn the occasion, and quite frankly I'm a little scared. What if everything looks terrible? What if it looks great but nobody shows up? What if my attempts at cooking give someone food poisoning?

I truly wish I had the spare cash to outsource everything, from the styling and setup through to catering and drinks, but it's just not possible on a freelancers budgets.

So it's a DIY party-planned event by the most disorganised, anxious person in this corner of Queensland.

Wish me luck!

xx Kit

PS. If you want to see what kind of ideas I'm trying to pull together, have a look-see at my Pinterest!

Sometimes when I'm particularly devoted to procrastinating, I do things like this to hopefully amuse (but probably annoy) people from random corners of the internet. This time, it was a Twitter quote from Brendan Maclean that spoke to me. As soon as I read the words I thought, yes, that needs to be in white Helvetica on a blurred landscape background.

Sorry Mr. Maclean. I had to.

Also, you're welcome.

xx Kit

PS. The background image is a snap of a salvaged Alois Arnegger print that adorns my desk now that I've finally come to terms with the slow and painful death of my desktop PC, and the resulting uselessness of my beautiful (and relatively new) monitor.

PPS. Probably don't use someone else's photos and claim them as your own when you add a quote to them. Definitely don't add your own watermark to your appropriated image, and please, always do your best to find the original source and credit them accordingly!

They may seem blatantly obvious, but the design industry is a challenging world and we often need these kind of 'commonsense' reminders. I do, at least - even after a decade in the design world.

Another reoccurring theme was the importance of personal projects. Almost all the speakers touched on this in some way or another - pouring yourself into a personal project, expressing yourself in an unfiltered, unapologetic way (Moffitt.Moffitt) and letting your work be your journal (Miso).

I love a when bit of unexpected inspiration sneaks into your world, especially when it arrives holding precious caffeinated elixir! BioPak have collaborated with OKYO to create some of the prettiest coffee cups you've ever seen, and they're environmentally friendly to boot!

I was lucky enough to attend Semi-PermanentBrisbane yesterday, and I'm looking forward to having the weekend to pore over the beautiful Book Two and really process all the knowledge and wisdom shared during the day.

It's easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of knowledge and talent at events like Semi-Permanent, especially for a hermit like me who was too shy to rock along to the after party on my own, but I'll do my best to sort through my thoughts and impressions of the day and share them here with you next week.

In the meantime, check out the great snaps, quotes and insights from other Brisbane attendees over on Tagboard and/or Seen (where I'm a 'Top Source' - woo!) I was planning to take a lot of my own photos during the event, until I took a shot during Ben Briand's presentation and suddenly realised how awkwardly loud my phone's camera is, regardless of which app I used. I could swear the sound echoed!

Anyhoo, watch this space for more SP goodness, and have a great weekend!

Here, have a little bit of levity for your Tuesday afternoon! This incredible floating photography is the work of London-based photographer, Sara Morris. Her portfolio is slick, surreal and utterly droolworthy, so if you need a little eye-candy for your afternoon, head over to her site or check out her great behind-the-scenes posts!

I have a long-held fascination with forgotten, abandoned buildings, so these photographs by Australian architectural photographer Peter Bennetts appeal to me on many levels - precisely because what at first appears to be sprawling Babylonian ruins, or perhaps even abandoned coastal bunkers, are in fact an exciting new hotel currently under construction in Vanuatu.

The project in question is La Plage D'hôtel du Pacifique, designed by Melbourne-based Kristen Green Architecture (KGA). The strong influences of both Louis Kahn and Le Corbusier are combined with references to ancient Roman architecture, and to my mind, the resulting design manages to be oddly at home in the tropical setting.

The strong geometries are both complemented and softened by the timber herringbone fenestration on the windows and doors, and the boarded in-situ concrete walls, whilst appearing quite brutal and stark at first, will weather and age beautifully and gradually blend back into the surroundings (if they're not rendered or whitewashed, that is!)

If you've ever bypassed drab landscape paintings at a garage sale or your local op shop, these cheeky altered artworks might make you think again. In a quirky departure from the urban additions made famous by Banksy, these monstrous alterations are a little bit whimsical, and sometimes just a little bit creepy too!

US-based artist Chris McMahon has been adding a range of fantastical monsters to acquired landscapes since 2009, and describes them as "involuntary collaborations." If your walls need a furry land narwhal or two (and really, whose doesn't?!) then can you grab prints via deviantArt.

Based in Vancouver, Thryza cites her background in set and costume design as the inspiration for her interventions, and tries to bring new life to paintings that were otherwise destined for the scrapheap - for example, the alterations in Fun at the Lake cover a large damaged area in the most adorable of ways!

Prints are currently available from her Etsy store, and the originals are destined for a silent auction next month.

Fulfil your annual dairy requirements with the amazing work by London-based photographer Jaroslav Wieczorkiewicz. According to the SLR Lounge article, the pin-up inspired 2014 calendar will be available next month - pencil it in!

The SLR Lounge article also details the incredible processes involved in creating these retro works of art - and while it involves high speed photography and a decent serving of Photoshop, it also involves real milk being thrown onto the models. A lot.

The weekend is finally nigh - hooray! It also happens to be the very last weekend of Art and About Sydney (boooo!) so if you happen to be in the area and you haven't already had a wander around the city, be sure to mosey in and check out some seriously impressive work, including Field, pictured above.

P.S. I stumbled across Jen's work on Lisa Congdon's blog, which is currently getting some much-deserved recognition for taking up the fight against a company that appears to have quite the track record of profiting off the creativity and hard work of others. Read more about it here and here.

As someone who is still without a drivers licence (don't judge me!) the very concept of road trips doesn't enter my thoughts often. Once someone even vaguely hints at the possibility of a road trip in the near future, however, there's little else I can think about.

A little trip to Byron is on the cards with my long-suffering best friend, and I'm a tiny bit on the excited side. I'm a very well-practiced passenger and practically a pro at sitting!

I haven't been to Bryon in years though, so any hints, tips and recommendations would be very gratefully received! (As always, coffee is my #1 priority, closely followed by delicious treats!)

Even on a toasty Spring day like today (36°C in Brisbane, even hotter in Sydney!) there's just something about the sight of a cup of tea that relaxes me (although an iced tea would be the more logical option, of course!)

Unreliable HQ relocated to Brisbane a little while ago (sans former-Mr. U >: ) and although I'll readily admit that sub-tropical summers are still incredibly scary to me (think of an entire city that feels like a sauna), I absolutely love springtime here.

The weather is blissfully warm, the skies are azure blue, and the humidity hasn't quite set in yet - not in earnest, anyway!

I especially love the jacaranda trees, with their explosion of purple blooms that slowly give way to glossy green leaves. They usually start blooming in September, which coincides with the exam periods for the major universities and has consequently given rise to the term 'Purple Panic' - also making me immensely glad my university days are well and truly over!

On a quick stroll through the inner-city suburb of Paddington yesterday, I wandered past this beautiful church that reminds me of the grand turreted houses peppered along the main street of Annandale, and I walked past an arbour of star jasmine - the scent transported me right into the back lanes of my old 'hood, Surry Hills, where entire terrace houses are enshrined in star jasmine and the perfume is nothing short of intoxicating.

Needless to say, I'm a little homesick for Sydney, but I'm definitely learning to love Brisbane. If only the beaches were closer!